Coaching Carousel 2024

[laxfan9999]

anyone have any insight on what is going on at Xavier?

Heard from my daughter who is a freshman at another school (but had a club teammate at Xavier) that more than half the Xavier team entered the portal last week. Assume its a coaching issue..

Xavier coach brought her husband on as an assistant with no lacrosse experience. Terrible coach, no people skills and little support from school doesn’t make for a good program.

[LaxPundit07]

anyone have any insight on what is going on at Xavier?

Heard from my daughter who is a freshman at another school (but had a club teammate at Xavier) that more than half the Xavier team entered the portal last week. Assume its a coaching issue..

Xavier coach brought her husband on as an assistant with no lacrosse experience. Terrible coach, no people skills and little support from school doesn’t make for a good program.

Are you sure this is how you want to describe Matt Zink and Meg Decker? Maybe the guy is doing the best he can while dealing with the side effects of trial treatments for his cancer? Find someone else to pick on.

https://www.usalacrosse.com/magazine/co ... meg-decker

[Laxfan212]

anyone have any insight on what is going on at Xavier?

Heard from my daughter who is a freshman at another school (but had a club teammate at Xavier) that more than half the Xavier team entered the portal last week. Assume its a coaching issue..

Xavier coach brought her husband on as an assistant with no lacrosse experience. Terrible coach, no people skills and little support from school doesn’t make for a good program.

Are you sure this is how you want to describe Matt Zink and Meg Decker? Maybe the guy is doing the best he can while dealing with the side effects of trial treatments for his cancer? Find someone else to pick on.

https://www.usalacrosse.com/magazine/co ... meg-decker

I wish no harm upon either of these coaches and hope for health and healing. But when it comes to her coaching, many have described her style as abusive. Of course you have to take it with a grain of salt but I’ve heard the reviews on this page are pretty spot-on. https://www.2adays.com/coaches/meg-decker-46914

[laxfan9999]

I am not picking on him. I am just saying what parents of players have said. Having two of the same voice is not always good. Look at their record and the talk of people leaving. She is the problem not him.

[WashedUpLaxDad]

I am not picking on him. I am just saying what parents of players have said. Having two of the same voice is not always good. Look at their record and the talk of people leaving. She is the problem not him.

My niece plays at Butler, admittedly a mid-lower D1 school. I went to the Butler/Xavier game and clearly something was off on Xavier.

Xavier probably had more talent, but were completely undisciplined (probably 8 or 9 green cards). Both coaches screaming on the sidelines all game and from what I could tell, getting ignored for most of the game.

Butler won 16-10, but completely dominated the game and if not fot a bunch of unforced turnover would have running clocked them.

And remember this was a Butler team who went 2-15 with the other win being a 1-goal win over Central Michigan.

[spidey44]

I just dug out the letter Xavier wrote my daughter this fall. I knew it was from an assistant coach. Just checked their website and she's been completely scrubbed. It was never on my daughter's list, but she did talk to this assistant and really liked her. Hope she found a much better gig...

[Timtebow]

Maybe the game grew faster than it could develop decent coaches. Xavier, Old Dominion, and others seem to have coaches in place that may know the game, but are woefully unprepared to lead groups of student athletes. You can be a good college coach just by recruiting and treating your players well so they perform at their best.

[Brownlax]

Maybe the game grew faster than it could develop decent coaches. Xavier, Old Dominion, and others seem to have coaches in place that may know the game, but are woefully unprepared to lead groups of student athletes. You can be a good college coach just by recruiting and treating your players well so they perform at their best.

I agree that the game grew faster than coaches were developed. Take a look at other sports, where do you see so many players jump from playing one year earlier and are now coaching college teams with women who are basically the same age. It does not happen in other sports and it does not happen in business. Do you think any real business would bring in a brand new kid right out of college and throw them into a leadership role with ZERO training? That is what is happening in women's lacrosse.

My issue with this is training, developing people skills, management skills and leadership. If AD's are going to allow these coaches to be hired then they should be responsible for developing these coaches.

[laxdadpat]

Maybe the game grew faster than it could develop decent coaches. Xavier, Old Dominion, and others seem to have coaches in place that may know the game, but are woefully unprepared to lead groups of student athletes. You can be a good college coach just by recruiting and treating your players well so they perform at their best.

I agree that the game grew faster than coaches were developed. Take a look at other sports, where do you see so many players jump from playing one year earlier and are now coaching college teams with women who are basically the same age. It does not happen in other sports and it does not happen in business. Do you think any real business would bring in a brand new kid right out of college and throw them into a leadership role with ZERO training? That is what is happening in women's lacrosse.

My issue with this is training, developing people skills, management skills and leadership. If AD's are going to allow these coaches to be hired then they should be responsible for developing these coaches.

The logical pipeline of coaches will be former college players, but being a former All-American does not automatically make you a good coach. Many great former players just used their amazing athleticism without having to learn the finer points of the game. I would have done the same if I could just run by most of the completion, not the case for all, but many. I think there a many poor coaches at the DI level. I watch countless games questioning the lack of an offensive scheme. IMHO the influx of more great athletes are why the scoring numbers are much lower between high level teams. The rules favor the offense, but it's easier to coach a defense of 7 women around the 8 meter circle to stop a team trying to "out athlete" the defense. UNC will be very interesting to watch next year because it is stacked with offensive weapons, but I feel they are a prime example of an offense that just tries to run great athletes through a defense. CH is an amazing passer and may help the offensive scheme, time will tell.
There is clearly a need for more great/good women's lacrosse coaches at all levels. Lacrosse will continue to grow as more girls/parents get wise to the false promises soccer has been selling for a decade.

[flushlax77]

I think pay is major issue. Why hasn’t some of the top associate head coaches and assistant coaches jumped at some of these midmajors? The pay is better as an assistant than it is as a head coach at the majority of these schools.

[610Lax]

I think pay is major issue. Why hasn’t some of the top associate head coaches and assistant coaches jumped at some of these midmajors? The pay is better as an assistant than it is as a head coach at the majority of these schools.

Correct. Asst Coaches aren't moving to Cincinnati or Indianapolis for a marginal raise from what they earn at a top program.

Another problem is the AD's at many of these schools adding the sport, and their often lack of experience with the sport. When you've never had the sport at any of the schools you've worked and you don't know the first thing about the sport, you end up hiring a Meg Decker because she had experience starting a program both as a HC and as an Asst, instead of looking at her 2-44 record as a HC at Hartford and realizing she may not be a good coach.

[610Lax]

I am not picking on him. I am just saying what parents of players have said. Having two of the same voice is not always good. Look at their record and the talk of people leaving. She is the problem not him.

She is a very charismatic recruiter and had parents drinking the Kool-Aid at a recruiting weekend a couple years ago. Everyone loved her.
She's also great on social media and building excitement for the program. But that personna does a 180 when you step foot on campus.

Now, some of the criticism she gets is to be expected because of how she built her program. She had over 40 players on the roster in the fall of this year. 36 made it to the Spring roster after she cut some players. But they have an incoming class of 10 '24s and only 2 Sr's graduating. So if kids didn't transfer or quit she would have had 44 kids next year. Playing D1 lacrosse is a lot of work, and it's tough to put in all that work and lose so much. But it's even worse when the team is really bad and you're not even allowed to travel or suit up for home games because of travel/roster limits. It's to be expected that kids will leave if they're not projected to play a future role, so blaming all 15 kids leaving the program after this year on her is a stretch. But she was 2-44 at Hartford prior to Xavier, so her coaching style/ability does need to be questioned.

[NutmegCrunch]

anyone have any insight on what is going on at Xavier?

Heard from my daughter who is a freshman at another school (but had a club teammate at Xavier) that more than half the Xavier team entered the portal last week. Assume its a coaching issue..

Xavier coach brought her husband on as an assistant with no lacrosse experience. Terrible coach, no people skills and little support from school doesn’t make for a good program.

Are you sure this is how you want to describe Matt Zink and Meg Decker? Maybe the guy is doing the best he can while dealing with the side effects of trial treatments for his cancer? Find someone else to pick on.

https://www.usalacrosse.com/magazine/co ... meg-decker

It's very unfortunate that he's battled cancer for so long, but being married to the head coach doesn't magically qualify him to coach division 1 lacrosse. He has zero experience as either a player or a coach.

Decker's record at Hartford was abysmal, even for a new program. I heard through an acquaintance whose daughter played for her there that she was a Jekyll & Hyde type - she had a great pitch during recruiting but the reality was very different for a lot of girls once they got on campus.

[LaxPundit07]

anyone have any insight on what is going on at Xavier?

Heard from my daughter who is a freshman at another school (but had a club teammate at Xavier) that more than half the Xavier team entered the portal last week. Assume its a coaching issue..

Xavier coach brought her husband on as an assistant with no lacrosse experience. Terrible coach, no people skills and little support from school doesn’t make for a good program.

Are you sure this is how you want to describe Matt Zink and Meg Decker? Maybe the guy is doing the best he can while dealing with the side effects of trial treatments for his cancer? Find someone else to pick on.

https://www.usalacrosse.com/magazine/co ... meg-decker

It's very unfortunate that he's battled cancer for so long, but being married to the head coach doesn't magically qualify him to coach division 1 lacrosse. He has zero experience as either a player or a coach.

Decker's record at Hartford was abysmal, even for a new program. I heard through an acquaintance whose daughter played for her there that she was a Jekyll & Hyde type - she had a great pitch during recruiting but the reality was very different for a lot of girls once they got on campus.

I never said his cancer diagnosis or his marriage to coach. Decker qualifies him to be a coach at Xavier. To be clear: if you have a problem with him coaching there, your problem is actually with the Xavier athletic department and human resources office. Why would they allow a person with no coaching or playing experience to be hired for that role? Nonetheless, I just felt like the guy had been battling for his life the past handful of years and perhaps we could aim the criticism somewhere else. It certainly sounds like Coach Decker herself has earned plenty of opportunity for criticism. But to each their own.

[Ladylax]

Kacie Lewis out at UNH but not a surprise at all...

[Seacoaster(1)]

Kacie Lewis out at UNH but not a surprise at all...

Three years and back to the drawing board for UNH.

[laxlaxlax]

Kacie Lewis out at UNH but not a surprise at all...

Three years and back to the drawing board for UNH.

Not a surprise because of UNH leadership of because of the coach herself?

14-30 total record but only 2-12 this year and 0-6 in conference play. Ugh that’s tough.

[Seacoaster(1)]

Kacie Lewis out at UNH but not a surprise at all...

Three years and back to the drawing board for UNH.

Not a surprise because of UNH leadership of because of the coach herself?

14-30 total record but only 2-12 this year and 0-6 in conference play. Ugh that’s tough.

I'm no insider at UNH, but this seems like it was a substandard hire in the first instance, by an athletic administration that invests in football and ice hockey and appears to keep women's sports around because of Title IX balancing.

[laxinallthetime]

Ana White, Asst. Coach out at Rutgers

[flushlax77]

Ana White, Asst. Coach out at Rutgers

Headed to one of these openings? William & Mary?